Normandy in springtime

Many French wildflowers are best known to us as good garden plants.

04/26/2002
Normandy in springtime

Spring is a beautiful time of year all over the world, and Normandy is no exception. Acre upon rolling acre of apple orchards are in bloom, gardens are full of bulbs and spring perennials, camellias and rhododendrons are in their full glory. Newly minted leaves furnish a nuanced background for it all, in every shade of tender green imaginable.

But the most glorious sight of all is the wildflowers of roadside, meadow, and woodland. Moist forest slopes are blanketed in tapestries of fragrant wood hyacinths (Hyacinthoides hispanica) and white woods anemone (Anemone sylvestris) in breathtakingly lavish floral tapestries that any landscape designer can only dream of emulating.

Here and there, the blue and white galaxy is enlivened by a touch of tender yellow, in the form of the sweet-scented common primrose (Primula vulgaris). One almost wants to ask whether the primrose is obeying the advice of Gertrude Jekyll. I believe Ms. Jekyll--like all great landscape artists--took her cues from nature.

Getting to know the native flora around me is for me an intrinsic part of getting to know a place--of starting to feel at home there. The table-turning part of this is that I recognize many French wildflowers already--as plants I grew in my garden back in Indiana. The fact is, a great number of the species we know and grow as "garden plants" in the U.S. are European wildflowers in origin. So it's with a start that I recognize the white woods anemone blanketing the Norman woods as the Anemone sylvestris (above) that I designed into many clients' gardens back in the U.S. as a robust, floriferous groundcover for deep shade.

Likewise for the almond-leaf spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides) above, which I adore for its chartreuse flowers that, like those of lady's mantle, contrast fantastically with all the pink to mauve spring bloomers, and which last for 10 days as a cutflower. What look to be the euphorbia's greeny-yellow petals are in fact modified leaves, or bracts. These are enhanced by the deep purple-red stems and similarly tinted foliage. Add to all these attractions that it grows happily in part shade and heavy soil, and who could ask for more?

Well, I could. When it comes to plants, I'm simply greedy. I can't get enough--either of number or variety. One one of our Sunday drives, I made Denis come to a screeching halt on a narrow country road. I had just spotted a cloud of intense sky blue hovering over the bank of a talus, the improbably steep berms that the French construct along roadways and property lines, crowning them usually with beech trees planted very close together.

The trees' roots hold this almost vertical mass of soil in place, and the ground beneath the branches becomes home to some of France's most beautiful wildflowers. In this case, it was Veronica austriaca ssp. teucrium, (above), a short-growing speedwell known to most American perennial gardeners as a great plant for the front of the border. Nearby was a wild hardy geranium (Geranium robertianum, also above), reminding me that almost all our hardy garden geraniums are of European origin.

We took a short stroll along the roadside and found lots more treasures. The most splendid was the wild orchid above (Dactylorhiza maculata), with its dramatic spathe of fuschia flowers and glossy leaves dramatically spotted with dark red. Nearby we found stands of pink- and yellow-flowering comfrey, as well as the common but lovely compagnon rouge (Silene dioica), or "red companion," so named because it can be found along most roadways and footpaths (see below).

Nearby were two more faces familiar from gardens back home: the forgetmenot and--what a surprise--ajuga, one of my most detested groundcovers! But here, held in check by the surrounding vegetation, I didn't mind it so much. In fact, I was curious to identify that blue spike, until I foolishly realized what it was.

In spring, I realize also to what extent Normandy is a natural apple-growing area, because the hills are all pink and white with the foaming blossom of wild apple trees. It's as if in the woodlands, the orchards lower down got diluted with other trees. The pink and white fades as a gradient from orchard into forest.

Even the most humble flowers can form beautiful floral tapestries in the wild or semi-wild. Because Normandy is also an enormously productive dairy area, with thousands of herds of pampered, red and white Norman cows, there are many acres of pastureland. The cows keep the vegetation cropped down enough to allow dandelions (actually much less frequent a plant here in France than in the U.S.) and the charming white meadow marguerite (Bellis perennis) to grow. Here they are (below) spangling just such a meadow like a milky way of golden yellow and white.

If you find these images intoxicating, why not grow French wildflowers in your own garden or furnish your table with Norman linens embroidered with everything from apple blossoms to field wildflowers? See the 'Shop Online' pages...

Products of Interest:
Embroidered table linens--Full service for 6--Fleurs des Champs'
French wildflower seed mix--'Prairie Fleurie'
Embroidered table service for 6--'Fleurs de Pommier'
Embroidered table linens--Full service for 6, 'Meadow Marguerite'

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